A Need Indeed

If you saw the ultimate Fighting Championships on Spike TV for free on Saturday, September 8th, 2007, you should be happy that you didn’t pony up any money for a pay-per-view card. Yes, there were some good fights. Yes, the fighters are talented and entertaining. And yes, the fight game is far from being truthful and forthcoming. We need a scoreboard. I have been saying this for years. If there is some sort of legacy that I could leave to a sport that I have given my life to, it would be having a scoreboard posting the judge’s results after each round.

Matt Hamill was robbed. He beat Michael Bisbing like a bothersome little step-brother. It wasn’t even close. Hamill had better stand-up and ground skills. But because the fights were in the United Kingdom, the judges gave the fight to Bisbing, the local hero. It was a disgrace. What other sports allow for such a biased and intrusive outcome? Well, figure skating comes to mind. Remember the scandal at the Olympics with the pair from Canada?

Back in 1999, I had a fighter in the Light Heavyweight Division of The International Kickboxing Association. He was fighting for a title in California and the five scheduled rounds were a bloodbath. The guy’s name was Derek “The Tornado” Galanis and he was fighting Isiah “Cornrow” Savage. Although Savage was a really tough guy and had beaten Galanis by knockout in the first round earlier in the year, this particular fight belonged to Galanis. He had won all four rounds handily going into the fifth and final round.

In the corner I reminded Derek that he was winning and not to do anything foolish. I told him to play with Savage, keeping a nice jab in his face and continuing to use a push-kick to keep him at bay. There was no reason to go for a knockout or try to earn more points with fancy spinning moves like Derek favored with his spinning back heel kick. During the competition, with about a minute to go, Derek landed wrong on his left foot following a push-kick. He spent the remainder of the round hobbling around the ring while Isiah tried to knock him out.

Well, the judges thought that somehow Savage had hurt Galanis and they awarded the decision to him. I couldn’t believe it. We were jobbed in the worst way and wrote a letter of protest to the California Athletic Commission. The problem was that we were in the hometown of Savage, just like Hamill was in the hometown of Bisbing. Scoreboards tell the truth, judges don’t. Even if a judge is practicing some funny business, the fighter and the cornermen would know what to expect in the latter rounds after seeing a score posted previously.

It is wrong to job and rob a fighter of his effort and skill. A scoreboard posting following each round would let the competitor know what they had to do to overcome blind eyes of bad judges. Derek “The Tornado” Galanis remembers his being robbed daily, and I’m sure that Matt “The Hammer” Hamill does too.